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Meanwhile, in Russia, telecom operators complained about the exodus of customers.
Kyrgyz people complained about YouTube problems after Russian video hosting began to slow down this summer.
Furthermore, Russian authorities claimed that the problem was caused by outdated Google devices. The company itself commented that the slowdown in loading videos was not their business.
Some experts believe that YouTube’s slowdown is politically motivated. Since 2014 (and more actively since February 2022), the site’s administration has been blocking channels of Russian media, video bloggers and organizations that previously existed for many years, which, according to Google, “unexpectedly” no longer abide by the policies and rules of the service. Thousands of channels were deleted, and just before the blockage, Google censorship affected a number of cultural figures valued by the Russian government, including musician Yaroslav Dronov, who goes by the pseudonym Shaman.
In addition, Google has banned all Russian users from making money from the service.
Earlier, the Tagansky Court in Moscow fined Google 4.6 billion rubles for systematically violating the requirements to remove false information about the conflict in Ukraine. Russian Federation politicians demanded that the YouTube administration and Google management unblock and restore the deleted channels.
In July 2024, the information portal “Ru” published a news report citing sources close to the Russian presidential administration that the authorities plan to completely block YouTube this fall.
“There will be some degradation during July-August, i.e. YouTube will operate worse in some regions. In some cases, it will slow down, in others, the site will lag, in others, the app will crash. The blockade will start in September,” said a source close to the AP.
Despite the fact that Russian authorities officially mentioned the degradation of Google devices, operators providing Internet services have asked them to formally confirm the blocking of YouTube. Due to the difference in the quality of videos watched by customers on video hosting (some download videos, some do not; the problem is mainly experienced by users of the PC version of Youtube; mobile operators do not experience loading stops), there has been a mass exodus of customers – consumers.
Most of Kyrgyzstan’s internet (up to 90%) comes from Russia, including through Kazakhstan. Despite assurances from IT experts that the problems with YouTube blocking in the Russian Federation will not affect users in other countries, people in the Kyrgyz Republic have begun to complain about video playback problems on the service. While experts attribute these problems to old equipment, maintenance by Internet service providers, Wi-Fi communication difficulties, etc., Kyrgyz people are confused as to why all these “difficulties” suddenly appeared after Russia’s decision to block YouTube.
The overall situation is similar to that in Russia: some users have problems loading videos, others say everything is fine; complaints are mainly directed at the PC version of YouTube; the mobile version works fine.
Many questions remain unanswered: Is the Internet in Kyrgyzstan really so independent of censorship in Russia or other countries? Are there any similar resources that can be blocked? The transition to the Chinese Internet, characterized by strong state censorship of many global Internet services, etc., is promising. But one thing is clear – pretending to be good when performing poorly will not bring positive results in the end. The result is that ordinary users of the World Wide Web are deprived of the freedom of choice, development and education; nor for companies that base their business on it, which will suffer billions of dollars and lose millions of customers if they are censored by themselves or third parties; for politicians, one of the most developed channels for transmitting ideas is disappearing in the information age.
Mikhail Gottfried
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